Willow’s spring thread

[HeatherG]

Happy Easter and joyous Passover to everyone!

Willow and I will celebrate with friends on Sunday. They will put their cats away do Willow can come over. Tonight we are going to paint eggs.

Here is a photo of Willow from last summer. It makes me think of spring. We don’t have any flowers blooming yet but we will soon.

 

[Henderbird]

So beautiful

 

[Cottonoid]

What a gorgeous photo Have a lovely Easter weekend!

 

[HeatherG]

Be sure to click on the photo because the picture is cropped in the preview.

Thank you! I will tell Willow that he has admirers.

 

[Zoruace]

Willow is gorgeous!
Can’t wait to see more photos of him

 

[HeatherG]

I just got Willow’s new food and am unhappy to see that Harrison’s super fine arrived. Willow was eating high potency fine and I wanted to transition him onto adult lifetime fine. I’m worried that he won’t accept this.

Crud. I’m not sure if I ought to return it or try it.

Here is a photo from Easter Day. The birds and I had a quiet day at home and will celebrate Easter later this week. I accidentally caught Willow in the middle of a yawn after a nice long head scritching session!

 

[HeatherG]

I blew Willow’s mind by putting a pink milk bottle cap in his food dish. He went and stared at it and made upset noises. I felt guilty.

I just got confirmation that he has always been afraid of new things.

Willow is upset with me tonight. I think it was the sneaky milk cap. Who knows? I wonder why new things are upsetting? Lucy would have run and grabbed the cap away from me and carried it off or banged it around.

 

[kme3388]

Willow looks stunning in the photo with the flowers!!! What a beautiful quaker. I've only seen them green. I didn't realize they could also be blue.

 

[HeatherG]

Thank you! I like all the colors.

 

[HeatherG]

Willow is eating the superfine Harrison’s bird diet and may actually like it better than the fine high maintenance diet. I don’t know why that would be, but I’m finding fine pellets on the cage floor as I never have.

A few days ago, he shared my dinner with me. We had baked tilapia (fish), sugar snap peas, and rice. I set aside a cooked pea pod and some rice before salting and buttering. My goodness, Willow sure sucked down the baked fish! He really liked it! I was afraid to upset his tummy so after a few pieces of fish, I didn’t give him any more. I wonder if he’s going to start molting soon? It takes a lot of protein to make feathers.

 

[HeatherG]

Willow desperately wanted “out” just now but he’s biting me today. I think he’s looking for cookies as he’s running around on my bed looking around and if I try to pet him he bites.

Anyhow Willow got tired of biting and was just staring at me now like “why won’t you pet me?” So I tried. He is accepting some pets. Wish I knew what was going through his head.

Willow is not biting to cut me but a good pinch, like “knock it off already! Jeez, ma!” Yet he’s sitting a few inches from my nose crunching his beak.

And now we’re back to pinching. I threw away an empty bag and he’s decided that was very scary so he’s on top of his basket, growling. I hope he will settle down because I think he needs some scritches and I need some scritches, too!

 

[HeatherG]

We had a very intense day of loud apartment repair with extension cords, drills, and strange workers. I was very very tired because I spent the night before clearing out and around the closets.

Jasper and Willow had some shorter cuddles and then I dashed off for my final filling. Now I am eating dinner and trying to relax a bit. And looking for things to get rid of…. Wow, I’m really tired.

But I took some photos of Willow this weekend. Let’s see what I’ve got. The first photo is Willow in the light from the window. The second is a nice close up showing his face and beautiful feathering. Such a handsome guy! He’ll get lots of scritches tonight!

 

[wrench13]

I always say the best bite is the one that doesn't happen. BY studying and reviewing what took place immediately before a bite ( surroundings, actions, the parrots known moods , likes and dislikes) you can usually anticipate bites. Salty is going on 8 very soon, and we've cataloged most of the things that cause him to bite, and they are definitely avoidable. THings like mating season always throw a monkey wrench on that, hormones being what they are.

 

[HeatherG]

Willow is being much more exploratory. Maybe I can get him to take a bath in the Scary Bath Bowl. I’m not sure how I can have a BRIBE in the bath bowl, but I’ll figure it out…maybe some floating lettuce leaves or berries.

Well! He just finished an avicake that was about as big as his head and is now looking distressed. Where did my treat go? WHY is it gone? Why?!

And now he’s hanging over the edge of the basket, looking for the unchomped crumb of Avicake. And is IN THE BASKET with the scary jingle ball. Wow! Those must be some good avicake crumbs.

 

[cnyguy]

I think you've discovered something to use as a bribe when you want Willow to cooperate with you.

 

[HeatherG]

We had a tornado warning in the upper Midwest last night. And I had an incredible flare in arthritis pain in my hands and feet. I didn’t get ANY sleep last night and holding the phone and typing is painful today. Poor Willow and Jasper have not gotten hardly any attention today.

I can hear Willow complaining in his cage right now and I am not sure what to do. I don’t think I can hold bird or scritch head much today. They are both rather upset with me, I bet, but what can I do? I was waiting for a weather related upset last night as happened in the last windstorm a few months ago, but both birds were ok.

This is very frustrating as I am not an old person! Most people would call me a young person. But I am not able to interact or do much work today and I am not happy about it.

 

[cnyguy]

There are bound to be times when a parront can't have the normal interactions with their parrots, because of illness or injury, or other disruptions. The parrots may not be happy about it, but they can adapt. When that happens to me, I just spend as much time as I can just sitting with the parrots and talking to them. That way, they do get at least some attention and get to spend time with me.

 

[Laurasea]

We had a tornado warning in the upper Midwest last night. And I had an incredible flare in arthritis pain in my hands and feet. I didn’t get ANY sleep last night and holding the phone and typing is painful today. Poor Willow and Jasper have not gotten hardly any attention today.

I can hear Willow complaining in his cage right now and I am not sure what to do. I don’t think I can hold bird or scritch head much today. They are both rather upset with me, I bet, but what can I do? I was waiting for a weather related upset last night as happened in the last windstorm a few months ago, but both birds were ok.

This is very frustrating as I am not an old person! Most people would call me a young person. But I am not able to interact or do much work today and I am not happy about it.

I get it...sometimes I have flares and can't for safety reasons have mine out.
It's not fair at all

 

[HeatherG]

I’ve been petting willow for about 2 hrs after being sick a few days and he’s not ‘done’ yet. He’s just absorbing the pets. And finally started grooming ME in return.

I feel bad that he was so lonely and upset
He seems pretty happy now, though.

 

[HeatherG]

I had some petting/ scritching time with Willow this evening and then we went for a walk. I hadn’t been out in some days because I’ve been really sore. But walked a half mile or more with him in a shopping area which he mostly enjoyed. (Willow is carefully clipped and can’t fly.).

I have scratches on my chest where I held Willow close to me when waiting to cross the street. They were a bit sore right when I got home but now are ok. We just looked in windows and sat on a bench for a while. It was about 82 and not very muggy so comfortable walking weather.